Lindsay Clancy trial

I’ve posted about this before but my thoughts are getting worse so here I am again. Asking if there are any other moms, people who want to be moms, moms to be who are very triggered by the current Lindsay Clancy trial? I am a mom of 2 who was diagnosed with OCD early in pregnancy with my second. I had extremely distressing thoughts of having psychosis and harming my oldest child. I went through 8 months of intense, twice a week ERP therapy with NOCD that truly saved my life. I had an incredible experience but had to stop because we switched insurance providers and NOCD was no longer covered. I have been managing pretty well, but this trial has me in a full on relapse, because everything that happened to Lindsay is my biggest fear that got me an OCD diagnosis in the first place. I am trying to watch/read everything that comes up on my phone about it in order to expose myself and work on response prevention messages, but I am feeding the algorithm and literally every other post is about her case. It is all consuming at this point. I think what is making this so hard for me to grapple with is that my NOCD therapist frequently told me “people with intrusive thoughts about harming people don’t ever harm people.” But in the trial, they said Lindsay was having intrusive thoughts. If they were egodystonic and disturbing to her, how and why did she act on them? The lines are so blurry. I think, if she did that, what if I did that, too? I am not asking for reassurance. I know there is no way to know if that is something that could happen to me or not. I am asking if this subject has been triggering for anyone else and if so, how are you managing? Is continuing to consume content about it in an effort to expose myself helping or hurting? Would appreciate any and all advice and thank you if you read this far. ❤️

joyfilled

Date posted: 2d

You don’t need to keep reading whatever posts those are. Just do mental health care and trust yourself. Go for a walk outside. God loves you. Also, find an OCD therapist that does take your insurance

cexienl_10

Date posted: Yesterday

This is the exact same story that made me so sick with OCD two years ago. I even admitted myself in the hospital because I was scared I was a danger to my family. And I’m an adoptive mama, never have I biologically had a baby so I “know” it’s illogical but still, it TERRIFIES ME and triggers me years later. So I know our stories aren’t 100% similar, but you’re not alone. Take those stories as exposures. Practice response prevention. Use your non engagement responses. We can never know her situation or what was going through her mind (trust me I’ve ruminated on it for 1000000000000 hours to try and figure it out LOL) but what we do know is you aren’t her. You have diagnosed OCD. Your intrusive thoughts are egodystonic and they target your babies because they mean the most to you. Because you’re a loving and safe mama. Not trying to reassure you, but I read a statistic a while back that there are like no cases of someone with harm OCD actually harming someone. I think it was in John Hershfield’s harm OCD book I can’t remember. Lindsey clearly did not have OCD or she would have the outward compulsions. Like I could barely even be around my children when mine was at its worst. Her behaviors appear to be the opposite.

Katie 🦋

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 14h

@cexienl_10 Thank you for your perspective on this I really appreciate it 🩷

doglover12

Date posted: 18h

Hi! I am not a mother but have also been so trigger by this case in the mere fact she had harm related thoughts and acted on them. The fact is everyone has those types of thoughts and the thoughts are not the problem. We will never know truly what happened in that case but it sounds like you’ve gone through this before and never hurt anyone, and you will get through it again. We can do it!

Katie 🦋

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 14h

@doglover12 I really appreciate this thank you!

doglover12

Date posted: 18h

I’ve also stopped consuming content because I realized it was a compulsion for me because I was checking/comparing myself to the situation. Stopping has helped!

MaybeMaybeMaybe

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 14h

Same! This case is my primary fear and the truth is that we will never know what was going on with her and that’s ok. Maybe she had OCD type intrusive thoughts, maybe she didn’t. We should accept that we won’t know. We can have empathy and feel sad about the situation this family was in and at the same time, we don’t need to compare or try to prevent something like this from happening because those are compulsions. Just try to accept the uncertainty, you got this!

Katie 🦋

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 14h

@MaybeMaybeMaybe Thank you for this!

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